


dancing with myself

by ninemoons42



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Music & Bands, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Charles Is a Darling, Erik has weird hair, Inspired by Music, M/M, Musicians, cold drink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 13:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for <a href="http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/"><b>cottoncandy_bingo</b></a>. Prompt: cold drink. My card is <a href="http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/208216.html">here</a>.</p>
    </blockquote>





	dancing with myself

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**cottoncandy_bingo**](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/). Prompt: cold drink. My card is [here](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/208216.html).

title: dancing with myself  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)**ninemoons42**  
word count: approx. 1250  
fandom: X-Men: First Class [movieverse]  
characters: Erik Lehnsherr, Charles Xavier  
rating: G  
notes: Written for [](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**cottoncandy_bingo**](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/). Prompt: cold drink. My card is [here](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/208216.html).

  
The cloudburst finally comes just as Charles is getting down on a familiar street corner, and it’s only his rapid reflexes that propel him from the bus’s open doorway, to the dubious shelter of the bus stop, and from there to the awnings and the shopfronts.

He’s parched already, because the pouring rain isn’t at all helping him with his sudden thirst. He wishes he was home, because there is still about half a pitcher of juice chilling in the refrigerator – a lime/calamondin mix that his sister came up with, something tart and refreshing and just as good hot as cold.

Charles comforts himself with the fact that he’s made ice cubes out of some of the juice, and put those ice cubes in his water bottle for later; in the meantime he runs, and he can feel his blood pumping heat through his veins and muscles as he dodges leaky gutters and jumps over puddles. It only seems to add to the terrible humidity of the day. He wants to flip back the hood on his jacket, but he doesn’t want to get his hair wet, but it’s hard to breathe – but he’s almost there, almost at his destination.

Thankfully there is no one at the front desk to see him almost hit the doors to the studio in his haste to get in. He braces himself against one of the walls and flips off his hood, and takes in a deep breath – the air in here is cool and dry and recirculated, which is always the problem with climate control, and it’s still better than the clinging wet of outside.

Some of the large rehearsal rooms are in use and if Charles listens closely he can tell what’s going on today: here is the hypnotic beat of a salsa piece; here is the ballet instructor leading a class through warm-up exercises; and here is a sweet soft piano melody, punctuated with rapid footfalls and the syncopated rhythm of someone doing a lot of jumping.

When Charles peers into that rehearsal room he smiles and waves at Angel, who takes off into a perfect grand jeté; on landing she poses for a moment – perfectly framed in the cloudy light coming in from the full-length windows – and then rises into a fouetté, before she finally pauses in her routine to wiggle her fingers at him.

Charles laughs and shakes his head, shoots her a fond smile and moves on, heading toward the back of the studio, where the smaller practice rooms are located; he has keys to the one marked with a black 4 on the glass, and when he gets in everything is as he had left it last night: CD player next to the door, which he plugs in and switches on; lights all dark, and he turns one of them on – just one, which lights up the corner farthest away from the door; chair in the center of the room, which is part of his performance.

First things first, Charles thinks, and he takes a very cautious sip from his water bottle, shuddering and them smiling as the icy-tart juice explodes across his tongue. Delicious and refreshing and energizing all at once, and it gives him a reason to start – he shucks his jacket and skins out of his trousers, and as he steps up to the barre fixed to one wall of the room he looks himself over in the mirrors.

Shoulders squared and chin lifted. Freckles scattered over his throat and collar bones. The tank top he wears in practice is unraveling at the shoulders, and the knees of his tights are wearing thin again. He wonders if he’ll ever actually manage to finish growing into his own gangly arms and legs, because he’s looked coltish and off-balance for all the time he’s been dancing, and sometimes it’s funny, but sometimes it just makes him wrinkle his nose at himself, which is what he does now.

Charles’s eyes travel over the old scars, reminders of the times when he pushed himself too hard. He’s been dropped before, and he’s broken his arm, broken his leg, and every time he’d come back and started dancing again.

Still worth it, he thinks, and he smiles, and crosses back to the CD player to press Play.

When the music starts up he thinks of someone else’s smile, thinks of hands moving expertly over the fretboard and strings of a battered electric guitar, the red of its body a startling contrast against tanned skin. True that this version is at once both strange and familiar, infused with Indian strings; true that wound through the melancholy of the piece is the original hard-driving rhythm. The piece is complicated and still beautifully relevant, and it is still a challenge to dance to.

“There must be some way out of here,” Charles sings – the room is small enough that he can fill it with his own raw and untrained voice, quiet echoes repeating the iconic line – and then he leaps over the back of the chair, lands in it and begins to dance.

He can feel his muscles and his bones moving, his nerves firing in every inch of his skin, leaving him electrified and prickling, and he channels what he feels back into his movements so it’s a positive feedback loop, building and building with every step and with every sweep, all the way to the cry of _all along the watchtower_.

He manages to get through the entire routine once without making any mistakes – he even neatly sticks the landing when he’s required to jump up onto the seat and then do a backwards somersault off it – and he holds the last pose for one minute longer than is required, before he falls back into the chair, looking over his shoulder at the mirror. Looking at his own incredulous grin – and at the person sitting next to the door, next to the CD player, who is putting down a bag that clearly contains a guitar, who is rummaging in Charles’s things.

“If you’re looking for the water bottle,” Charles says, laughing and still trying to catch his breath, “it’s in the other pocket.”

“Thanks,” Erik says, and he pulls out the bottle, taking a quick swallow from it, before he crosses the room and sits next to Charles’s feet.

“How was practice?” Charles asks between two long swigs of juice.

Erik brightens up as he takes the water bottle back for another sip. “Better than yesterday. Better than the rest of the week actually. Maybe we can make something that sounds like music.” His smile dissolves briefly into a scowl, before he leans his head against Charles’s knee. “Being in a band sucks sometimes. Mostly when there’s someone new in the band, who isn’t familiar with what we do.”

“Poor you,” Charles teases. He rests his hand briefly in Erik’s hair, which is a mess of little gelled spikes today.

Erik pretends to grumble, but the grin quirking up one corner of his mouth gives him away nearly immediately, and he huffs out a laugh before he kisses Charles’s knee. “Are you going to dance again?”

“Depends on whether there’s anything left in my water bottle?”

“About half?”

“Then I can have another go,” Charles says.

“Want me to sing for you?” Erik offers.

Charles grins, and nods.

They go out for root beer floats after, sweet and icy-cold, after running through the drizzle and giggling and trying to save Erik’s hairstyle from melting.  



End file.
